


the face and the mask are mirrors, baby (the genderqueer remix)

by runningondreams



Category: Avengers (Comics), Marvel 616
Genre: (90s-era discussion thereof), Alcohol Abuse/Alcoholism, Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Angst, Bisexual Tony Stark, Canon Death of a Parent, Canonical Character Death, Canonical Child Abuse, Captain America/Iron Man Remix 2019, Closet Politics, Coming Out, Crossdressing, Depression, F/M, First Kiss, First Time, Friends to Lovers, Gender Dysphoria, Genderqueer Tony Stark, HIV/AIDS, Happy Ending, Homophobia, Identity Issues, Identity Porn, Kid Tony Stark, M/M, Remix, Secret Identity, Tony Stark Needs a Hug, Tony dates a lot of people during his life but endgame is Steve/Tony and only sex scene, Tony drinks but isn't drunk on-page, Tony drinks from a very young age (canonically), Transphobia, Underage Drinking, toxic masculinity
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-02-21
Updated: 2019-02-21
Packaged: 2019-10-28 05:53:56
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 16,086
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17781824
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/runningondreams/pseuds/runningondreams
Summary: When Tony’s young, he thinks maybe he’s built wrong. He thinks: Maybe one day, if he gets good enough, he’ll be able to redesign Tony Stark. Cast himself in a new mold. One day, he’ll bebetter.





	the face and the mask are mirrors, baby (the genderqueer remix)

**Author's Note:**

  * For [isozyme](https://archiveofourown.org/users/isozyme/gifts).
  * Inspired by [the girl with the modern face](https://archiveofourown.org/works/16371266) by [isozyme](https://archiveofourown.org/users/isozyme/pseuds/isozyme). 



> Note: A remix of isozyme’s _the girl with the modern face_ for Cap-Iron Man’s 2019 Remix Exchange. I absolutely loved reading all of isozyme’s work but this fic stuck with me and you should definitely check it out right now, immediately. 
> 
> Note the second: As someone who identifies as genderqueer, this fic was rather painful to write. Mind the tags.
> 
> * * *

Tony is three years old and he’s stealing his mother’s perfume because he misses her. He wants to be able to fill the house with her and so he does, with the help of a crystal bottle and a little spray pump that’s just slightly too big for his hand. He sprays his bedroom, and his pillow, and his playroom, and the halls, and the entryway, and the kitchen, which is when the cook catches him and calls for Jarvis and his nanny. He’s used about half the bottle by then and they all scold him over it, but he goes to sleep that night able to imagine the pillow is his mother’s shoulder and the blanket is her arms around him. 

“Oh, Tony,” she says when she finally comes back and Jarvis relays the story. She draws him up on her lap and says, “I’m sorry, my darling. I missed you too.” He has a vivid sense memory of her hands over his, her curls brushing his shoulders as she kisses the top of his head. The next time she leaves she gives him a brooch to wear on his collar: infinity confined by silver. He squeezes it tight as he watches her walk away, until the shape is outlined in red against his palm.

Later, his nanny teaches him about Leif Erikson, and Gunnar Hamundersson, and he runs through the mansion with braids in his hair and screams battle-cries against the garden’s weeds, and when the day’s fight is done and he’s been scrubbed pink and clean he steals a few pumps of his mother’s perfume because he likes it. It’s soft and bright in his senses, as safe and exciting as a fairytale, and he dances through the lingering cloud and pretends it’s the wind in his ship’s sails and might carry him anywhere. 

His father brings him back to solid ground with a sharp jerk on his shoulder and a scowl that’s as bitter as the whiskey on his breath.

“Stop wasting your mother’s things,” he barks, his hand clamping tighter. “Boys don’t play with perfume.” 

He says it like that’s a fact, but it’s not, and Tony knows it’s not, and if he’s learned anything from his his father it’s to always be sure he has all the facts. He crosses his arms and frowns right back.

“Helen’s book says Viking warriors used perfume. Weren’t Viking warriors boys?”

Howard swears and stalks away, his anger diverted.

Three days later, Tony has a new nanny. He never sees Helen again. 

*

Tony is four years old and his mother is teaching him piano, because she says music is a skill everyone should learn. She draws notes out in careful dots of ink and paints each of his fingers a different color to help him remember which one to move. He likes looking at their hands on the keys together, likes the flash of difference on his fingertips, likes he can reach out and draw pictures in the air and maybe other people will be able to see them. 

He learns to play Mozart and Chopin, learns that music is math, turning numbers and ratios and patterns into sound. He learns that sound is a wave he can map in his head, and he plays and plays until the shape of the sound matches the shape on the page, and then he plays more, until it matches the shape in his mind, too.

Even after he masters the puzzle of which-finger-moves-when, his mother still paints his nails sometimes. If he asks. Usually red, when she’s touching up her own. He decides red is his favorite—a flash like a laser pointer that comes out of his hand. He spends his afternoon in the garden shooting imaginary alien invaders with his red-laser finger guns and doesn’t realize until much, much later that the careful washing and nail polish remover applied afterward has more to do with his father’s presence at dinner than chipped paint, or dirt and grass stains.

*

Tony is five years old and he’s sneaking into his mother’s wardrobe. He pulls off his clothes and drags blouses off hangers and drapes himself in her things. Her shirts swish smoothly over his knees, and the hems bounce when he moves, and it’s about a thousand times more comfortable than his thick, stuffy trousers and the itchy collar of his sweater. His mother’s fabrics are as cool and smooth against his skin this way as they are during her hugs, and they come in bright colors and eye-catching patterns he never sees on his own clothes. He runs from the wardrobe and sprints down the stairs, reveling in the freedom of bare feet and air moving against his legs. He dances through the ballroom and leaps across the patterned rugs in the front parlor and skips to the conservatory, to make sure he finishes his piano practice before his parents get home.

It’s Jarvis who catches him halfway across the back lawn, afterward, and coaxes him back into a shirt and trousers. 

“You’ll catch cold without a jacket, and your mother’s clothes are fragile, Master Anthony,” he says. “You wouldn’t want to tear them while you’re climbing trees, would you?” And that is logical and reasonable and so Tony agrees. But Jarvis _keeps_ stopping him, over and over, keeps laying out calm, rational chains of thought to convince him to change, and then, when Tony digs in his heels and refuses—it’s too hot for trousers, or even shorts, too humid for so many layers and pinching buttons—he resorts to bribery. Popsicles. Popcorn. Ice cream. Trips to Central Park. Swimming lessons.

Once, memorably, Jarvis doesn’t try to coax or bribe him. He’s stern, and sharp, and Tony’s left with a sense of vague foreboding as a t-shirt is dragged over his head and jeans are yanked up his legs. _Something_ is wrong, but he doesn’t know what and he doesn’t want to ask. For the first time in his life, he’s not sure he wants to know the answer. 

He learns it anyway. One day, Jarvis isn’t fast enough. Tony’s mother is home early, his father beside her, and Tony is so surprised that he trips and falls in the entryway. There’s a tearing sound, too loud in the quiet hall, and he can feel loose threads on the back of his calves. His knees and palms are stinging, pulsing with hot red pain.

His mother stares at him, her eyes too-wide and her mouth a perfect “o”.

His father jerks him to his feet, already yelling, loud enough and angry enough that Tony can hardly understand what he’s saying. He cries, misery and confusion taking him over, and that only makes things worse. All he can see is his father’s bared teeth and all he can hear is a chorus of _wrong, bad, wrong_ that repeats in his head long after the yelling’s stopped. 

The bruises on his knees heal quickly. The bruise on his wrist takes longer. The next time he visits his mother’s wardrobe he drapes himself in fabric and sits in the dark, listening hard for the sound of footsteps or voices.

It’s not fun anymore. He takes apart the toaster and the radio instead. Machines are predictable. They don’t yell, and they don’t grab, and they never look disappointed. They follow the rules you set for them, and if they mess up, it’s because they’re built wrong.

He thinks maybe _he’s_ built wrong. There has to be some reason he keeps messing up. Maybe, if he gets good enough, he can rebuild himself, too.

By the time he’s six the closest he gets to his mother’s wardrobe is waiting outside the door while she changes before a party, fiddling with the tie that he still can’t quite manage himself. 

*

Tony is seven years old and he spends most of his time at a boarding school one of his father’s business associates recommended. Recommended for _what_ Tony isn’t certain. It’s definitely not the food, or the quality education, or the nurturing creative environment. The food is uniformly gray and brown and over-salted, the curriculum is boring, and the environment is a never-ending list of _cannot._ The teachers tell him he can’t wear his mother’s brooch on his drab, too-scratchy uniform. They say he can’t draw on his hands, that he can’t touch the grand piano. They tell him he can’t do algebra in his head, can’t read after lights-out, can’t have built that himself, can’t keep antagonizing the other boys.

Tony tells them they need to look up the definition of _can’t_ , because obviously he can, and he already _has_. He tells them that he _will_ play the piano, and he will read whenever he likes, and they literally cannot stop him from doing math in his head or building whatever he wants. He shows them his bruises and tells them exactly where he gets ambushed every evening because it’s not his job to control the other boys, it’s theirs. At Christmas his parents get a note that calls him antisocial, mutinous and, most damning, _delicate_. 

“This is _exactly_ why I told you not to coddle him, Maria,” his father rages. “Can’t stand for himself and can’t take a punch—no, I don’t want to hear your excuses!” 

“Toughen up,” he tells Tony. He spills brandy into Tony’s glass and stands over him while he chokes it down. “Stark men are made of iron,” he says. “Be better. Understand me? _Be better_.”

The next term is a misery. The teachers watch him more closely now, coming down on every infraction and imagined slight. His hair is too long: they cut it. His uniform is out of order: they confiscate his mother’s pin. He writes in his textbook—correcting misprints and misinformation—and all his books are confiscated. He refuses to participate in group sports—football and paintball and lacrosse and hockey and a half-dozen other options that all seem specially designed to get him beat up _more—_ and they revoke his music privileges. He is insubordinate: he serves detention and spends hours writing the same sentence over and over again until he wants to scream. Until he _does_ cry. And then they make him start again. 

The other students are just as relentless, and _their_ infractions attract no attention. No matter how many bruises and scrapes Tony collects, no matter how many pranks end in stains on his uniform—mud or food or ink or paint—no matter how many of his creations they destroy, no matter how they hiss and jeer, no one ever steps in to stop them and no one ever believes he didn’t start it. He doesn’t know _why_ they hate him so much, but the message is clear. He’s on his own.

He gets in fight with the headmaster’s nephew that ends with bite marks on said nephew’s arm and, two days later, the deconstruction of a number of power tools from the custodian’s warehouse and a theft of supplies from the sports shed to build a hopper-fed paintball gun. Tony has good aim. He doesn’t cause any more damage than what has been done to him: bruises and stains and the type of personal property damage he’s been told over and over is “non essential.” But of course it’s different, for him, because it always is. They send him home for Easter with his bags packed and a letter that says _don’t come back_.

“Why were you fighting?” his father demands, dark brows drawn low on his forehead. 

Tony has lists of reasons. Every possibility he’s come up with. _Because I’m smarter than they are._ _Because I make better things than they ever can. Because I told Charles I liked his hair first term_. _Because I don’t pretend to like them. Because they can get away with it_. On and on. But there’s a look in Howard’s eyes that he recognizes from the teachers. A look that says he already knows what the problem is, and the problem is Tony. So Tony gives him what he wants. It’s faster. More efficient.

“Because they called me a sissy,” he says.

“So prove them wrong.” His father smiles, and pours him another drink.

Tony goes to another boarding school. And another. Strict uniform follows strict uniform, rules upon rules upon rules, and it never gets better. He works hard at his studies. The harder he works, the faster he moves up a grade. The faster he moves up, the more sneering faces he leaves behind. 

What he can’t leave behind is his father’s penetrating stare, and the splash of alcohol in glass, and the persistent, grinding certainty that all of it is his own fault. Somehow. _Stark men are made of iron_ echoes in his skull. He does his best to drown it out with numbers and dense textbook paragraphs. He plays the piano too loud and builds motors that make more noise than they need to. He wears headphones and blasts his brain with music, but he can still hear it, over and over: _Stark men are made of iron. Be better_. Some nights, staring down at the twisted pieces of yet another broken prototype, he whispers back, _I don’t want to be a Stark anymore_.

*

Tony is thirteen years old, and he’s finally at a school that cares more about his academic progress than anything else. He even thinks he might have finally made a friend. Jonathon is working ahead of his supposed grade too, and they share a series of study periods in the same library study room, both of them working on undergraduate correspondence courses. Sometimes they eat lunch together. Sometimes they listen to music that Tony can feel beating in his bones, the kind of music his teachers and parents dismiss as meaningless noise. Sometimes Jonathon asks for help with his calculus homework, and a week after Halloween he lends Tony a book that has nothing to do with computers, or programming, or drafting, or math: Sir Thomas Malory’s _Le Morte d’Arthur_.

Tony reads it in every free moment he has. He abandons school work and sleep until he reaches the end, and then he reads it again. It lights up a part of his brain he was hardly aware of before, like he just needed the right conductor, and this is it. Knights and quests and ideals that reach beyond an individual person or a particular place in time. He’s particularly taken with Gareth, initially derided and scorned but ultimately beloved, and he reads the battles against the Green and Black and Indigo Knights and Sir Ironside the Red Knight over and over and over. 

“I love it,” he tells Jonathon, clutching the book tightly. “I can’t stop thinking about it. Do you have anything else like this?”

Jonathon grins, bright and happy. He digs another paperback out of his backpack and holds it up. _The Fellowship of the Ring_ , by J. R. R. Tolkien. 

“I just started this one,” he says. “But I could go back if you want to read it together?”

They scrap their first study hall for the rest of the week and spend the time reading instead, crowded together at a single desk. They take turns reading aloud to each other, and at the end of the week Tony looks up from a passage about the door into the mines of Moria and Jonathon kisses him. Right on the lips.

Tony freezes. It feels odd. But good. He’s not sure what to do, with his hands or his face or _anything_ , but he does his best to kiss back until Jonathon draws away. He’s pretty sure he’s blushing. His face feels hot. Jonathon stares back at him with clear green eyes that are almost translucent in the light from the window. Tony leans in and kisses him again, feather-light, and Jonathon smiles and takes his hand like it’s something precious.

*

Tony is fourteen years old and he think he might be in love with Jonathon. He’s slowed his course progress, putting off the day when he’ll have to move to a real campus so they can spend more time together, more time sitting close as they work, and reading together, holding hands and stealing secret kisses whenever they can. He guards their time together fiercely and holds every touch and smile close to his chest, like a ball of light in his heart.

And then one day he comes back from the Easter break and finds Jonathon is angry with him. 

“Did you know about this?” he demands, waving at a stack paper and microfilm reels on his desk. 

“Know about what?” There’s a flutter of foreboding in Tony’s stomach. Things had been _fine_ when they left off. 

“Read it.” Jon stands and shoulders past him. “I need to—talk to the headmaster.”

Tony sits slowly and pulls the top paper toward him. It’s an assignment, for one of Jonathon’s biology courses. An analysis of recent findings in research of H.I.V. and its public reception. There are a few pages of notes in Jon’s cursive handwriting. They start out clear and concise, with article references and shorthand summaries. Something about lymph nodes and T4 cells CD4 proteins that Tony lacks the context to fully understand. But about halfway down the second page there are smudges and crossed out words, and the letters start to look malformed and sketchy. Tony can make out a few names—Ricky Ray, something Ashe—and a few other words: hemophilia; infection; homosexual. 

There’s not enough information. He tries the stack of journals, but they’re all dense biology and virology texts. They don’t have what he needs to know. He grabs the first spool of microfilm and ventures out to the reader, using Jon’s notes as a guide.

It doesn’t take long to piece everything together, after that. He finds Ricky Ray first, a hemophiliac boy close to their age whose home was burned down when he and his brothers successfully sued to re-enter school after their diagnosis with H.I.V.; he’s dead to AIDS at 15. Arthur Ashe is a tennis player who recently announced his own diagnosis. Those are recent, within the last year. But Tony’s pretty sure that’s not what has Jon upset. It’s the other things. 

Some of Jon’s notes mention protests, and a few years back there are a lot of news articles about men who kiss men, like he kisses Jon. There are men who don’t dress like men, who he can hardly look at in pictures, they make him so scared and so hopeful all at once. There are people who stand in an angry crowd and wear queer and gay and a whole list of other words he’s had thrown at him like they’re badges of pride, or a shield reflected back against the world. People he wonders if maybe he could belong with, at least a little. 

But they’re dying. They have been for years, and he didn’t know. This never made it to his parents’ dinner table conversation, or his teachers’ lectures on health and personal responsibility. And yet AIDS is tearing through the world with such ferocity that the CDC has listed it as the leading cause of death for American men between the ages of 25 and 44, and even though those deaths aren’t all gay men, a lot of them are. Too many. He reads article after article and study after study, looking for reasons, looking for logic and solutions, but even though there’s no scientific basis for it, even though there are women affected and there’s a documented pattern of contraction through contaminated medication, there are still people who stand up in public and say that these deaths are a judgment on gay people for their ungodly lifestyle, and people who say it _serves them right_. People who sound a little too much like his father. 

He’s gotten better at controlling his reactions, these last few years. He retreats to the study carrel and counts by tripling until he loses track of the numbers, then does it again, swallowing down the emotion in his throat and the ache under his rib cage, and he waits for Jon to come back. They can figure this out. Together.

Jon comes back but doesn’t look at him. He goes to his desk and starts stacking books and binders and paper.

“I’m moving to a different study hall,” he says.

Tony startles hard enough he almost falls out of his chair.

“What? Why?”

“If you read the articles, you know why.”

Jon still doesn’t look at him. Dread settles like acid in Tony’s gut.

“But—what—” He scrambles to his feet and scrabbles for the right words. There has to be something. “But neither of us is sick,” he says, and his voice cracks. 

“It doesn’t matter.” Jon shoves more books and pens and pencils into his bookbag. “I’m not taking a chance like that. Not for anyone. Not when a rumor alone could mean I don’t get into Cornell.”

He turns to the door.

“Jon, wait.” Tony grabs for his hand and Jon jerks backward.

“Don’t touch me,” he says. “Don’t _ever_ touch me again.” He looks angry, and afraid, and there’s a sneer on his lips like he thinks Tony _is_ sick. Like just touching him is a violation. 

He walks away.

Tony sits down hard and doesn’t try to call him back.

*

Tony is fifteen years old and studying at MIT and he hates his body. He hates the way his palms sweat and how his voice betrays him. He hates the wiry new hair growing everywhere and he hates how he smells. He wears more and more layers, t-shirts and button-ups and hoodies and jackets, hiding as much as he can. He spends too long in the shower, scrubbing until his skin is red and tender, but it doesn’t help and his face looks worse than ever, acne dotting across his cheeks bright as electrified neon. He stays in his rooms as much as possible—this is why email exists, right? He doesn’t have to be in class to understand the coursework—and eventually his mother shows up on his doorstep, Jarvis in tow. 

“They’re going to expel you if you don’t go to class,” she says, touching his face with soft, gentle fingers. “What’s wrong, my darling? I thought you wanted to come here.”

“Where’s dad?” he asks, watching the door.

“Still in New York. I told him I needed Jarvis for a charity event.” She brushes his hair back. “You’re thin as a rake, haven’t they been feeding you?”

“I don’t like the dining hall,” Tony tells her. There are too many people there, and he feels like they’re all watching him all the time. His mother clicks her tongue over him and asks Jarvis to find them some food. She fusses over him, over his hair and his clothes, and then over his room: the unmade bed, the clothes slung over his single chair, the bathroom that’s still damp from his last shower. She touches the silver brooch he’s stuck in the bulletin board above his desk and smiles softly. 

“I’ve missed you too,” she murmurs, and coaxes him into a hug. She smells of fresh linen and her favorite perfume, and Tony breaks. He cries harder than he has in years, like he’s been saving up the tears. He cries until he’s too exhausted to cry anymore, and he sleeps, and when he wakes Jarvis helps him clean up and teaches him to shave. He wears a clean white button up and dark jeans and eats a chicken sandwich with his mother and almost feels like he knows who he is again.

It lasts for two days after they leave. But he’s better prepared this time. He thinks he knows what he needs. He reserves time on one of the school’s pianos and makes sure he uses it. He goes to class and makes sure his professors know his face as well as his name. He shaves. He shaves too much; he shaves his face and his legs and his arms and anywhere else he finds curly dark hair, but it just comes back sharper and even more obvious. He wears more layers again. He still spends too long in the shower. 

But he goes to class. He gets his work done. By the time he’s sixteen he’s most of the way through two masters degrees and he’s hanging on by sheer will alone. Sheer will and whiskey, just enough to make the world a little softer, a little further away. 

One of his papers gets some attention. _Artificial Intelligence: A Discussion of Ethics in Programming_. He’s supposed to give a presentation, and he’s waiting backstage, pacing and trying not to touch anything with his sweaty hands, when a young woman stops him.

“You can’t go on stage like that,” she says. “In those lights? With the camera going? No. Come with me.” She drags him to the side, to rooms he didn’t even know existed, with mirrors and bright lights. 

“I’m supposed to be out there in five minutes,” he says. He stands awkwardly in the doorway, trying not to glance over his shoulder too obviously. 

“Professor Breckenridge always runs long.” She rummages through a drawer. “I can’t believe Alicia let you get this close without make-up, where—ah ha.” She puts a collection of plastic tubes and disks on the vanity.

“I need make-up to give a speech?” he asks as she guides him to a chair.

“Unless you want to look like a ghost, yes. It’s standard for theater and TV spots.” She grabs one of the disks and opens it. “Is this okay?” She holds it up next to his face. “I guess it’ll do.” She looks up. “Am I making you uncomfortable? You really can go out as you are, I just thought you might prefer less of the lost waif look.”

“I—yeah. Okay.” Tony tries to get control of his expression and nods. “As long as it’s quick.”

“The quickest,” she promises. She brushes some sort of lotion over his face and then presses powder over it. “I’m Meredith, by the way,” she says as she wields a dark pencil far closer to his eye than he was expecting. “Meredith McCall. I’m Breckenridge's TA this year, for my sins. We were all pretty excited to see your work. Bringing A.I. out of sci-fi and moving beyond Asimov and Heinlein. Heady stuff. Are you actually building one?”

“I hope so,” Tony admits. “Probably have a few years to go though.”

She smiles. “Everything worthwhile takes time,” she says, and steps away. “You’re good to go now. No more ghost-face.”

Tony looks in the mirror. He looks—different. Older. More confident. She’s done something to his eyes that makes them look more blue, and his acne is barely visible.

“Thanks,” he says. He wants to say more. She’s pretty, and kind, and she likes his work. He hasn’t met many people like that. He hesitates, but he can hear applause from the direction of the stage. 

“Go on,” she says, shooing him toward the door. “Wow them.”

He goes. After, he asks her to coffee and they spend three hours talking about the paper, and his work, and her own research into organizational socialization. They agree to meet again. And again, squeezing coffee and meals and strolls around Central Square in between their varied commitments. Meredith is perfect. She’s smart, only a year older than him and pursuing her Masters in Psychology, and she’s practical, and she understands him in a way no one else ever has.

Two months after they start dating she walks in on him experimenting with foundation. 

“I just—wanted to try it,” he says nervously. “I know it’s not supposed to be for—not every day, but—”

She blinks at him, frowning lightly. “It’s fine, Tony,” she says. “Here. Let me show you.”

He can feel her eyes on him after that. Assessing him in a way she hadn’t before. She watches him while he works sometimes, and when they walk across campus together, and when he eats, across a table from her.

“What?” he asks, finally, setting down his fork. “What’s so interesting about my face?”

“You’re wearing eyeliner,” she says. He winces. He’d thought that maybe, between his dark lashes and the somewhat dim lighting, she wouldn’t notice. “And it’s not just your face,” she continues. “Have you been painting your nails?”

“I—” he snatches his hands off the table, then realizes that’s more of a tell than anything else could be. He examines his fingers. There’s just a hint of red on a few of his nails, where he wasn’t thorough enough with the acetone.

Meredith leans her elbows on the table, arms folded. “You shave a lot too, don’t you? You could grow a beard if you wanted, it’d make you look older, but you still shave. And you don’t look at mirrors much, otherwise, or you wouldn’t dress like you do.”

Tony swallows against the apprehension drawing tight in this throat. This is it, he knows it. He’s getting dumped again. He’s messed things up. There’s something wrong, and just like always, it’s him. 

“I did a unit last year,” Meredith says. “I think I should give you some of the texts we worked with.”

“What for?” Tony asks. His face feels cold. 

“I just—think you might find them useful.” She shrugs. Goes back to her dinner. He doesn’t get dumped.

The texts she gives him are about gender, and sex, and sexuality. There are scientific surveys and studies alongside primary source literature, and there are so many words he’s never heard before. Terms like “bisexual,” and “transgender,” “transsexual,” “genderqueer” and “gender outlaw.” 

“Promise you’ll come talk to me when you’re done?” Meredith asks, and he does. It takes him two weeks to work through the material, and then another week to build up his courage.

He tells her about Jonathon. About the men and women he saw in newspaper articles, protesting in front of the White House. He talks about the way make-up makes him feel, and how much he hates what’s happening to his body, and she asks careful questions, and listens. She pets his hair and tells him _it’s okay, it’s okay, it’s okay_. 

When he’s seventeen he sits on her bed as she paints his lips a dusky rose and lines his eyes in dark kohl. She takes his hand and they dance through the room and they laugh, and fall into the couch, and they kiss, and she whispers, “I’d still love you, you know. If you were a girl.”

He curls his fingers through hers and stares into her eyes and he believes it. He’s just not sure that’s what he wants.

*

Tony is eighteen years old and his father has banished him to Cambridge, England to keep him away from Meredith. _A McCall?_ he’d yelled. _Did you just ignore her name every time you heard it? Have you forgotten everything I’ve ever told you about this business? You can’t trust everyone you meet, Tony!_

Howard doesn’t care that Meredith never showed interest in SI, that they never really talked about business matters. He doesn’t care that Meredith is not her father, and he sneers when Tony says he loves her.

 _That’s not love_ , he insists. _You have no idea what love is_. 

Apparently Meredith’s father feels the same way. The one thing we can agree on, Howard jokes. Tony doesn’t laugh. He gets one note from Meredith—she’s also being sent away. Somewhere else. She can’t tell him where. He’s not to write her or call or anything. They won’t see each other again.

He spends hours with the note, trying to figure out if she’s hidden some clue in it. Some secret message that isn’t quite so bleak. He figures out a pattern sometime after 3 a. m. and his heart leaps, but it’s not a clue, it’s just another goodbye. Love you. Be you. Take care.

His first week at Cambridge, Tony writes a search algorithm and starts it working through the University’s student list. It finds Cassandra Gillespie, Tiberius Stone, Elaine Barstow and Charles Geffen. Tony sets out to meet them as soon as possible, just to piss Howard off.

Cassandra and Tiberius—Cassie and Ty—are receptive. Elaine and Charles shut him down. Still, two new friends is better than none, and they’re happy to introduce him to more people. Ty, in particular, thinks the game of annoying their parents is hilarious. They take up sports that are all about risk and speed and adrenaline: hang-gliding and bungee jumping and skydiving, speed skating and skiing and white-water kayaking, racing cars and planes and motorcycles. They go out at least once a week, to clubs and parties and bars and then _more_ clubs and parties and bars, and then a friend of a friend says he has something special in mind and he and Tony and Ty end up at a drag show. 

It’s like a revelation. Tony forgets himself, watching with his mouth half open until people notice. Ty notices. His friend notices. At least one of the performers notices and winks at him, making a comment he can’t quite hear. It gets a laugh though, and Ty nudges his shoulder until he remembers: he’s supposed to tip. 

“You want to go back?” Ty asks later, over beer and chips.

“I—don’t know,” Tony admits. His head is full of images, each one broken into pieces: eyeshadow like this and lips lined like that. Fake nails painted glittery silver and dresses designed to catch the eye.

“You liked it,” Ty tells him. “Anyone looking at you could tell you liked it.”

“I’m not saying I didn’t.”

“Well, now I have a new question.” Ty grins. “Did you like it because you wanted to fuck them, or because you wanted to be them?”

He means it as a joke, Tony can tell. Something to brush off, maybe with a shove and a change of topic. But all Tony can think of is lipstick kisses and stockings pulled up over his knees. He says, “Can it be both?” without really meaning to, and Ty’s eyes go wide. 

“Holy _shit._ ” He sets down his drink and leans half across the table. “Holy shit, Tony,” he repeats, “are you serious? _God_ , you’re going to give your father an aneurysm, you know that? I wish I could see the look on his face when he finds out.”

“He’s not _going_ to find out,” Tony insists, even though he’s almost certain that somehow, Howard already knows. 

“We’re going back.” Ty tells him. “We’re definitely going back.”

They go to another show. And another. Tony meets new people, people who declare their sexuality proudly and flirt for the whole world to see. People who play with gender like it’s made of silly putty, infinitely mutable. He goes on dates. He kisses Ty, and Cassie, and men he hardly knows and women he’s only just met and people who don’t identify as either, or identify as both. He does more than kiss. He gets invited to an amateur show and wears a borrowed dress and a borrowed wig and borrowed heels and there’s a part of him that lights up like a firework. Being someone who _isn’t_ Tony Stark is more intoxicating than alcohol, and he does it again, and again, in amateur shows and private parties. Sometimes he wishes for a little less of an audience. A little less spotlight. But this is what he has so he plunges into it headlong, crafting a version of himself that’s better, or at least irrevocably different. 

By the time he’s twenty years old the whole world knows he’s queer, or at least that’s what it feels like. Twice, his father has tried to force him out of school and drag him back home, once over Cassandra (who, disappointingly, apparently _was_ planning to use him) and once over a tabloid photo that features Tony’s painted lips and his naked chest with a quite-definitely-masculine arm wrapped around him.

His parents actually visit, then, and the fight lasts hours—Howard is incensed and Tony is beyond reason, beyond _caring—_ and it ends only when security shows up to investigate the noise.

“You’re done here,” Howard spits at him after they leave, keeping his voice low.

“Just _try_ to stop me staying,” Tony snarls back.

As always, it’s his mother who actually brings a kind of peace. Tony doesn’t know what she says to his father, but her words to him are about being careful with his reputation and focusing on his studies. He has a University position, even if it’s as a TA, and a social position as a Stark, and both are important. 

He doesn’t tell her he doesn’t _want_ to be a Stark and he doesn’t care about his studies. School is too simple to hold his full attention. After his father storms off and his mother hugs him goodbye he sits at his desk and paints his nails in Chanel’s deep vamp red. He lines his eyes and presses gloss to his lips until they shine.

Ty arrives after he’s pulled on stockings and garters and slipped a silky black dress over his head.

“Planning a new look?” Ty grins and adjusts the dress’ collar, then traces a line of down Tony’s side.

“Not really,” Tony admits, leaning into the touch. He could do with some more externally sourced comfort. “I just—wanted to.”

Ty’s eyebrows climb up his forehead. “I don’t think that’s drag, Tony.”

“I know,” Tony tells him. “I know.”

*

Tony is twenty-one years old and his parents are dead. A car accident, Jarvis says, his voice strained even over the phone. Faulty breaks. The funeral is in three days, and Tony has a red-eye flight back to New York. Jarvis has already called a car for him. It will arrive in an hour. Anything he can’t pack Jarvis will arrange to have collected later.

Tony’s first reaction is: _What?_

His second reaction is: _No_. He’s not going getting on that flight. He’s defending his physics dissertation in two days. He can fly back after. 

Jarvis tells him there are matters that must be seen to. In person. That the university will understand. That there are allowances, for a family death. He calls Tony, “Master Stark.”

“That’s not _me_ , Jarvis,” Tony tells him.

“I’m sorry, Master Stark, but it is, now.”

Tony hangs up. He stares blankly straight ahead. At his desk, with his computer and textbooks and notebooks spread out on it. At his nightstand, cluttered with more books and pieces of wiring and a half-finished engineering project. At a photo of himself and Ty and their friends. At nail polish bottles and a tube of lipstick. At the posters on his walls and the sporting equipment stacked in the corner.

This is his _life_. Here. He doesn’t want to give it up. He doesn’t want to be _Mr. Stark_. It’s not fair that he should have to, especially not because of some stupid mechanical problem. Faulty breaks. Like that’s not something his father could have fixed in less than a day.

It’s _dumb_ , for Howard Stark to die because of something like that. And his mother, too, dragged down into death in the passenger’s seat. He can’t even remember the last thing he said to her. The last time they talked. He’s—not sure. He’s not even sure he has a _picture_ of her, of them together, from within the last two years. 

There’s a part of him that doesn’t really believe it. Not until he touches down in New York and Jarvis takes him to the mortuary, because he has to decide what to do. Burial or cremation? If burial, open casket or closed? What kind of service will it be? Were they religious? Is there any special preparation related to that?

Tony stares at the bodies that used to be his parents and he has no idea what to do. It’s like his brain has just stopped. 

He looks to Jarvis, who makes a suggestion. Tony repeats it as an answer.

The questions keep coming. What photos should be used at the service? Will it be public or private? What music should be played? Howard Stark was considered by some to be a national hero; will there be special speakers? Will Tony deliver the eulogy or someone else? Stark Industries will have to make a statement, and someone on the Board will probably have a speech prepared. How many others will speak? What sorts of flowers should they have? Will there be a reception? What sorts of refreshments should be served? On and on and on, never ending. And then there’s more: Wills to be read. Assets to be appraised and transferred. Commitments to cancel. Two days stretch to feel like a week, and he doesn’t sleep, and he can’t think clearly, and he’s certain he doesn’t feel _anything_ anymore.

People give him flowers. There are deliveries to the Mansion, several times a day. He starts to despise the cloying scent of lilies and roses and irises that fills every room and he thinks, _this is so stupid, the flowers are only going to die too. What’s the point?_

People bring him food. Mostly women who worked with his mother, who call him a _poor thing_ and tell him how proud Maria was of him. His cousin Morgan shows up and talks about how losing his father was something he just never really got over. He says that kind of thing just stays with you. Tony eats soup and casseroles in silence and wishes for an actual sandwich. Something he could really sink his teeth into and tear at. Something spicy, maybe, just to make his tongue burn.

He’s a mess. He knows he’s a mess. He’s always been a mess. He leans heavily on Jarvis and feels bad about it, and then the company gets involved and takes a lot of the choices out of his hands anyway.

He doesn’t cry at the service. He doesn’t care what that looks like. He doesn’t have any tears for Howard Stark, and that’s what this is about, now. Howard Stark. Howard Stark’s accomplishments. Howard Stark’s vision. Howard Stark’s service. Tony’s mother is a footnote at her own funeral. A handwave of charity work and social niceties. Tony stands through the endless receiving line and accepts rote words of condolence from people he doesn’t even know and hates all of them, indiscriminately. 

After the crowd is gone he picks his way through the Mansion to his parents’ room. It’s just as they left it. Like a crime scene, frozen in time once the tragedy was discovered. Untouched. There’s a pearl necklace draped over his mother’s vanity. An empty cufflink box sits on his father’s dresser.

Tony sits on the edge of the bed and waits to feel something, but there’s just a void where the emotions should be. It howls. He still doesn’t cry. Jarvis finds him there after some untracked length of time and sighs over him.

“Come, Master Stark,” he says. “It’s time to get some sleep.”

Tony shakes his head. “Please don’t call me that,” he whispers.

Jarvis looks at him with red-rimmed eyes and nods.

“Of course, Master Anthony.” He touches Tony’s shoulder, almost tentative. “Will you be retiring here tonight?” he ask, somewhat gentler.

“No,” Tony sighs, and he follows Jarvis down the long halls to his own room, and his own bed, even if he hasn’t slept in it in years.

A week. That’s how long he gets to talk to the University, and explain things to Ty, and to try to at least start getting his parents’ affairs in order. After that week the company Board comes down on him like a vice. Time to grow up, they say. His days of youthful experimentation are over. The media might forgive some teenage indiscretions, but he’s a public figure now. There are people depending on him: employees and their families, thousands of them, depending on contracts, and the people who sell those contracts will not be so forgiving if he doesn’t shape up. If he doesn’t present himself as a respectable adult—read: the straight, masculine, socially acceptable adult they want him to be.

Well, fuck those people, Tony says, too angry, too brash. We can get other contracts. We’ll go into medicine, or communications, or aviation. Space exploration and alternative energy and electronic security. Fucking _cars_ since apparently no one else can build them right.

And they shake their heads and sigh and say doesn’t he know by now that to be first is to work with the government? Doesn’t he know that every advance in any of those fields is easiest to grasp with military funding? _And the military industrial complex isn’t going to like you_ , goes unsaid, but Tony still hears it. 

He rebels. He buys the car company that killed his parents applies all of his focus to their manufacturing records, their design blueprints, and their sales records. He issues a recall of the affected vehicles and spends three days redesigning the entire brake line. 

No one else, he promises himself. No one else is dying because of _this_.

He buys other companies and opens new branches of SI, all around the world. They _can_ diversify, and they will.

His other rebellions are more personal. They want him to be that quintessential Stark they all have in their heads? Screw that. He’ll wear the suits—some days he even _likes_ the suits—but he’ll do it his way, with bright colors and patterns because what is even the point of only ever wearing drab neutral tones? He doesn’t need to look like he’s forty and settled because he isn’t. He keeps his face clean shaven and wears more eyeliner than TV interviews really require and he doesn’t censor his sexuality because he exists and so do other people like him, and they’re at least as important as everyone else.

Just that much gets more push-back than he ever imagined. He doesn’t get a chance to seek out New York’s drag scene or walk down the street as an anonymous woman because every move he makes is treated as a scandal. It shouldn’t be, but it is. He’s constantly in the news, most of it over things he’s been doing for years now: going on dates, dancing at clubs, lining his eyes and sometimes wearing lipgloss in public. But he was just the Stark heir, then, off in England doing young heir things where fewer people knew his face. Now he _is_ Stark Industries. He is its face. And every aspect of his person becomes a question. If he goes to dinner with a man, is he gay? If he dances with a woman, is he straight? If he wears make-up reporters ask him what kind of message he’s trying to send, or if maybe he forgot to wash his face after a photoshoot. His clothing is under constant scrutiny. Soon, his personal life is the _only_ thing he gets asked about. Who is he dating? Who is he wearing? How does it feel, to take up his father’s legacy? How does it feel, to memorialize his mother? And no matter how he answers, he is always, always wrong. 

But the worst part, the absolutely fucked part is, _the Board was right_. For every new branch of SI he opens, they need starting funds, and those funds have to come from somewhere, and the place they come from is the military contracts. The contracts they’re increasingly not getting, because the military doesn’t want to touch him with a ten foot pole. 

The company’s stock is in constant flux. There are lobbyists and congressmen and military representatives who refuse to meet with him; most of them hide it behind a careful screen of words—a preference for established contacts, or seasoned negotiators—but it all means the same thing as the Senator who refuses to shake his hand and the General who stares at him like he might be diseased and contagious.

They lose _lots_ of contracts. After six months Obadiah sets a stack of paper on his desk and makes him sign them by hand—termination notices, authorizations for severance pay, and for every packet he has a story. Amanda in accounting just had a baby. Ed from R&D just got married. Zhang Wei and Naveen both just moved to New York from from overseas: China and India, respectively. Grace is fresh out of school, trying to support her disabled mother and ailing father on a single paycheck. Dmitri has been with the company for forty-five years but can’t retire because he’s still putting his kids through school.

 _We don’t have to do this_ , Tony tries to argue, _we can find another way_ , but Obadiah has charts and numbers and reports from every department head and it’s clear that something must be done. It’s not as simple as pay cuts, or freezing raises, or reorganizing shifts or reduced hours. The company’s future is in doubt. Pillars they’ve been able to rely on for decades are crumbling. There’s no promise of continued work. Tony gives up his own salary for two years, but it’s not enough. He can’t save them all. The company doesn’t have the resources. These are the people who suffer when he fucks up, and every single one of them deserves better. _He_ needs to be better. 

Even if it’s not better for him. 

The board wants to mold him into the heir they expected and he. . . lets them. Conservative suit cuts. Conservative haircuts. Black and white color palette. Facial hair. He starts dating women exclusively and keeps tighter control of his mouth in front of the press. He can be controversial, in his business practices, they tell him. But not in his personal life.

His world shrinks. Not evenly all the way around, like heat shrink under a soldering torch, or like lipstick, wearing away as you put it to use, but the way a bomb shrinks people. He has voids and ragged edges where connections used to be, and those voids breed fear.

Tony’s rebellions are small and quiet by the time he turns twenty-three. Small and quiet, but more focused. He surrounds himself with good people he knows he can trust. At the top of the list: Happy Hogan, Pepper Potts, Jarvis. He dives deeper into the company, shoring up the weak points and setting a new foundation as quietly as he can. Someday, _someday_ he’ll get away from the military entirely. In the meantime he can make sure SI offers a fully comprehensive healthcare package and has a bulletproof nondiscrimination policy. He can promote more women, and more people who don’t fit the traditional mold that makes up his Board. He donates to charities pretty much constantly, LGBT organizations and social reform organizations and human rights organizations across the board, both through the new Maria Stark Foundation and on his own. He builds homeless youth shelters and women’s shelters and contributes to lobbies that could, given a few years, expand on workers rights and civil rights and basic human rights. He invests in education, both within his company and outside of it.

For himself he sticks to subtler things. Silk stockings under his slacks. Open collars, the occasional splash of color in a shirt or suit. Eyeliner, thin enough to be subtle. Days when he lets himself work from his personal lab at the mansion and wears whatever he wants. None of it is every day but—sometimes. When he needs it.

He feels like an impostor. Like he’s pretending at something that isn’t real, but he knows: This way, the only person he’s hurting is himself.

*

Tony is twenty-four years old and he’s just spent the worst three months of his life in a cave in Afghanistan. There’s an electromagnet stuck in his chest. It’s powered by what could, from a certain point of view, be classified as a miniaturized reactor, and its housing bears down on his ribs and makes him feel like he can never quite get a full breath. On the rare occasions that he manages to fall asleep he’s haunted by nightmares. In his waking hours he’s haunted by Yinsen’s face, and his bloody body, and his dying words— _Don’t waste your life_.

He feels like there’s a countdown in his head. Every idle moment is a betrayal. 

He should be working on SI’s new business plan. Stark _International_ , not Stark Industries, he already knows he’s changing that much. He should be reading contracts and replying to emails. He should be using this moment, capitalizing on it. He’s wanted a chance like this for years: a chance to pull out of DOD contracts completely, to make even the oldest, most-entrenched members of the board shift gears to move forward instead of digging in their heels and citing company history; a chance to make sure he never again has to smile and make small talk with people who look at him like being queer might be a disease. He could make sweeping changes, if he acted fast enough. Everyone’s so shocked to have him back, so uncertain how to treat him, after months of thinking he was dead. He should answer Pepper’s messages, and Happy’s. Make sure Rhodes gets set up right, like he promised. The board will want him to talk to a therapist. Again. He’s pretty sure there were some voicemails about that. And an email. 

The armor calls to him like a siren song, salvation and destruction spun together. It could be better. It could do so much more: enhanced movement strength, incorporated scanning technology, improved flight capabilities. It could be the most mobile, most versatile body armor ever created. And if he’s stuck with the RT anyway, he might as well improve it. Make it more comfortable. More _useful_.

He turns off his phone and shuts down his laptop. This, he’ll do on paper.

The first suit saved him: from death, from the desert, from a disaster of his own invention. The new one is a different kind of tool, a tool for making change in a way that Tony Stark, CEO and public figure, can’t. Someone in the armor could change the scope and speed of disaster response in an earthquake, or a hurricane. They could respond quickly to bomb threats, or hostage situations. They might find use counteracting covert espionage attempts, or aircraft malfunction disasters, or a whole variety of rescue efforts. They could be a knight of the modern age, armored in red and chrome. Righting wrongs and standing as a symbol for others. 

_Someone_. Like he doesn’t already see himself wearing it. Tony Stark, stepping out in to the world to make a difference with his hands as well as his mind and his money. 

He’s halfway through the remodel when he realizes that the armor could be an escape too. An escape from being _Tony Stark_. A suit to wear over his clothes, in the open, a contrast to silk against his skin and skirts worn where no one can see. 

It doesn’t take much. A tweak to the planned voice modulator. A few more curves than angles, an implied bustline and implied widening of hips, a slight refinement of the helmet’s shape and implied jawline and—there she is. A face Tony Stark can’t wear in public. A mask, presented back to front. A truth that looks like a secret. 

He names the new suit Rescue: a verb and a purpose wrapped into one. He already knows she’s the best thing he’s ever built.

*

Tony is twenty-five years old and he has a team and a secret identity, and they’ve found Captain America. _Captain America_. Frozen in ice for more than fifty years. Tony can still hardly believe it, and he’s met the man twice now. Once as Rescue; once as Tony Stark. 

Captain America likes Rescue. 

He doesn’t like Tony Stark so much. 

Tony’s not sure what it is. He tries to be welcoming. Personable. He puts his childhood home and his fortune at the Avengers’ disposal and makes a point of showing Steve some of the better bits of the future. And Steve’s polite, and friendly, but he doesn’t look at Tony the way he looks at Rescue. He doesn’t smile at Tony. Not the same way. He doesn’t talk to Tony, late into the night. He doesn’t share with Tony, even if it’s only sharing his love of Tolkien, or his excitement over being able to call in delivery from almost any kind of restaurant in New York, or how much more comfortable and springy shoes are these days. It’s a weird sort of dissonance, and it’s kind of annoying. 

Tony tries not to think about it too much. Tries to focus on Avengers’ business. There’s a whole series of self-declared supervillains to take down, and the team rises to the challenge. And then Cap insists on team-building sessions; if they’re going to work together smoothly in the field, they should practice. He sets up scenarios in the gym Tony’s refitted, and in the garden: reconnaissance and tactical positioning drills, reflex tests, attack combos, even sparring. 

“You need to be quicker on your feet,” Cap tells Rescue. “Some proper hand-to-hand training wouldn’t hurt either. Taking every hit’s a good way to get yourself hurt.”

“That’s what’s the armor’s for, Cap,” Rescue replies. But Tony puts mobility on his list of improvements and makes an effort to follow the list of exercise Steve gives him, both in and out of the suit. The armor does pretty well for protection, but that doesn’t mean the hits he takes don’t hurt.

After every training session, Wasp insists on a question for everyone to answer.

“Nothing that will compromise anyone’s secret identity,” she says, “but Cap’s right. We should know each other better.”

They’re innocent things. Favorite ice cream flavor. Ideal vacation spot. Weirdest thing you’ve ever eaten. And then, on a cold, rainy day after they’ve been sparring long enough that Tony’s arms feel like overcooked noodles, “What’s your favorite scent?”

“Jean Patou Joy,” Tony says, his brain still foggy. Ice floods his veins as soon as he realizes he’s said it—that’s not supposed to be something he admits out loud—but it’s fine. He takes a few breaths. He’s Rescue. Rescue can like whatever she wants. No one seems to notice the moment of distress.

It’s one piece in a pattern. The more time Tony spends as Rescue, the more he relaxes his guard. The more he relaxes his guard, the more long-buried bits of himself sneak out into the light of day. And he spends a lot of time as Rescue. More than he has to. More than he should. He starts wearing make-up, under the armor. Eyeliner and mascara to start, easily overlooked if he gets unmasked. Then lipstick, as red as Rescue’s satin finish. He shaves his legs. He watches Rescue’s silhouette in the workshop mirrors and reflected storefronts and doesn’t suppress the thrill under his skin when people call Rescue “Miss.” Even out of the armor, he does more and more of his work for SI away from the office. He videos in for conference calls and board meetings and communicates with R&D almost entirely through email. 

“You doing okay boss?” Happy asks, more than once. 

“I’m starting to forget what you look like,” Pepper jokes. “Are you avoiding everyone, or just me?”

“I’m fine,” Tony tells them both, “Just busy.” It’s true enough. The new solar panels aren’t quite as efficient as he wants them to be. Development on the Starkphone OS is stagnating. He has dozens of contracts to check and double-check before he okays the remote-navigation-submarine project. There is always more to do. 

One morning he looks in the mirror at his lathered face and keeps shaving until his beard and mustache are entirely gone, reduced to clumps of dark hair and white shaving cream in a sink spattered with bright drops of blood. He presses a cold cloth to the nicks and stares at his reflection.

It’s like looking into the past. Clean-shaven, he looks younger. Maybe young enough to mistake himself for twenty again. His hair is getting long and starting to curl at the ends. A little make-up, the right outfit, a trim and style . . . he could maybe pass, in the right circumstances. 

His breath hitches, and it has nothing to do with the weight of the RT in his chest. 

He doesn’t have foundation on hand, but he has concealer and he can at least moisturize. He gives up on eyeliner after the second attempt; his hands are too unsteady to get a smooth line. Mascara goes better, and the flash of red lipstick in the mirror flips a switch in his head. His hands don’t shake anymore as he cleans up his brows. He’s ordering foundation as soon as he can get to a computer, he decides. Eyeshadow too, and blush, and nail polish. Nudes and colors both. Proper brushes. Everything. If he’s going to be wearing a mask anyway, he might as well make the most of it.

His Avengers ID beeps out a call to assemble while he’s still rummaging in his closet and he yanks on the undersuit instead of stockings. Dr. Doom is attacking Central Park, Wasp reports as he pulls on the helmet. Doombots are pouring through glowing green portals and attacking both civilians and architecture. Cap is already at the scene, coordinating evacuation efforts. 

Tony arrives in time to tackle two of the things before they can start cutting power lines. He and Thor do their best to herd the bots away from roadways while Ant-Man shrinks as many as he can down to a size that’s more easily crushable. Cap and Wasp make a rush for the portals, but the glowing windows snap shut before they can get close. 

The clean-up takes hours. With the portals closed, the bots act more randomly. Three of them freeze in place and explode without apparent reason, and two others short themselves out in fountains. Ant-Man can only shrink and smash so many of them. Wasp takes up electrifying their joints so Cap can break them with one or two blows from the shield. Thor turns one group to slag and Tony blasts another half-dozen with precision repulsor shots. Several bots break away from the herd and wander off into the trees, and the Avengers only realize it when the SHIELD-manned perimeter radios in a sighting. Tony and Thor break off to mop up the stragglers, and Tony runs scan after scan and does a mapping flight for a three mile radius to visually confirm that every single one has been apprehended. 

When it’s done, when he’s landed back with the group and let himself sit down on the concrete rim of a soot-smeared fountain, he can feel the undersuit sticking to his skin, pulling and chafing and damp with sweat. The armor isn’t any heavier than before, and the weight is still well-balanced, but his movements feel sluggish and it presses on him. He feels closed in and confined. Ant-Man and Wasp are sitting close together nearby, talking quietly. Cap looks exhausted, leaning against a tree with his head tipped back. Even Thor seems to be feeling aftereffects; he isn’t nearly as boisterous as he usually is in the wake of victory. 

Maybe because it doesn’t really feel like a victory. Tony certainly doesn’t feel like he’s won anything. They don’t know where the bots came from, or what Doom was trying to do with them. They don’t know where Doom is, not for sure. Even Tony’s video footage of the portals only shows a vague shadowy darkness on the other side. They have no particular reason to suspect this won’t happen again. The real problem is still out there, unsolved.

SHIELD agents show up to claim the bot remains and Tony doesn’t protest. Pepper can contact them later, if they don’t call him first. He’s too tired and too irritated to liaise. He needs water. His throat feels too-dry, and his stomach decides that this is a good moment, now the adrenaline's fading, to inform him he’s starving. 

“We should get ice cream,” Wasp declares, apparently realizing the same. “Or some sort of food anyway. Think there’s a diner around here that’ll serve superheroes?”

They find a smoothie shop that’s still open, and then a food cart that’s all too willing to give Captain America and Ant-Man their food for free. Thor promises to meet them for a debrief when SHIELD comes back with more information and goes off to wherever it is he spends time between missions. Tony starts to feel a bit more human once he’s downed a bottle of water and half a protein smoothie. Still tired and too sweaty, but less like he’s going to bite someone’s head off if they look at him wrong. 

Cap is staring at his smoothie, something intent in his expression.

“Want some?” Tony holds it out. “It’s peanut-butter-banana. Protein and potassium.”

“Uh, no. No, thank you, I had enough.” Cap looks down at his hands, and it’s only then Tony realizes there’s lipstick on the end of his straw. He has a brief, vivid fantasy of finding out what the color would look like on Cap’s face, red lips pressed to fair skin and blue leather. Or, better yet, what _Steve_ would look like, out of uniform, if Tony left color on his lips when he pulled away.

But Cap’s not seeing Tony. He’s seeing Rescue. _Rescue_ wears lipstick under the armor. Tony Stark is just a businessman who’s becoming a recluse. 

Later, fresh from the shower, he stares at himself in the mirror. At _his_ body, and _his_ face. Not Rescue’s. Cap’s exercises have given his arms and shoulders more definition. His core and legs are better muscled now than they’ve been since he gave up speed skating at nineteen. His legs are all smooth skin, but his arms are still dark with hair. His fingers are long and bony, scarred with burns and nicks. The RT glows white and luminous in his entirely masculine chest. 

He closes the cover to shut off the light and finds a clean undersuit, wrapping himself in smooth black fabric. He shaves again, stripping away the hint of shadow that’s grown on his cheeks over the course of the day. He reapplies the lipstick, and pulls on the helmet. 

The silver faceplate stares back at him, impassive until he tilts his head. This way for interest, that way for a frown. Stern, like this, smiling, like that. The play of light and shadow is better than muscles and flesh. 

He puts on the rest of the armor and takes the stairs back up to the Mansion proper.

He’s better this way. Everything is better this way.

*

Tony is twenty-six years old and Captain America is asking Rescue out on a date. Because, Tony realizes in a rush, Cap has a crush on Rescue and probably has for a long time. That’s what all those late night talks and special smiles mean. That’s why Cap always looks to Rescue to fly back to the mansion together after a fight. It’s why he seeks Rescue out, even when there’s no Avengers business at hand. It’s why he likes Rescue more than he likes Tony. Because Captain America is straight, because of course he is. Why wouldn’t he be? Tony can’t even fault his taste. If he met a 6’6” woman who could fly and do vector calculus in her head and also punch things into oblivion, he’d probably be smitten too. 

Instead, Tony’s met Captain America, and Steve. And he _likes_ Steve. Too much. Way too much, judging by the spike in his heart rate when Cap said, _I was wondering if you’d like to get dinner sometime. Just us. Without the masks_. Tony wants, rather desperately, to say yes. He can feel the word on his tongue, bright and sweet. But he already knows that Steve doesn’t like _him_. Not like this. This invitation isn’t for Tony, and neither is the hopeful look Cap’s giving him now, waiting for an answer. For _Rescue’s_ answer.

“Sorry, Cap,” he says. Rescue’s voice is electronic and a little husky and nothing like his, and for the first time he _hates_ it. “This secret identity thing is pretty hard on a love life, but I gotta stick to it.”

“Then we can keep the masks,” Steve says, and it is Steve, now, even with the cowl still on. “I just—want to try. With you.”

“I can’t.” Tony’s heart is beating too fast. His mouth is dry, and he swallows compulsively. “I can’t, I’m sorry. I’d love to,” he blurts, because the truth always slips out when he’s Rescue, “You’re—really great—but I can’t.”

Steve’s lips form a thin line. He looks away. Tony thinks maybe that’s it. He should probably leave. Give Steve some space. Give _himself_ some space.

“Is it Stark?” Steve asks, and for a moment Tony is breathless and frozen, thinking Steve _knows_. 

“What do you mean?”

“Is Stark the reason you have to keep your identity secret? Even from the team? Is he—coercing you or—anything?”

“ _What?_ ” Tony stares. Is this what Steve thinks of him? Really?

Steve winces, like maybe he regrets asking. “I only meant—you’d tell me, wouldn’t you? If he was taking advantage? If anyone was?”

 _Taking advantage_. Like Tony would—what? Manipulate an employee into his bed? Force someone to—he can’t even finish the thought. 

“No,” he says, flat and cold. “No one is coercing me to do anything. This is my choice.”

“Okay.” Steve crosses his arms, holding on to his own elbows; his shoulders bow inward. “I’m sorry. I just worry about you, sometimes.”

“Don’t,” Tony tells him, the word bitter and scorching as vodka in his throat. He takes off and leaves Steve there in the garden, heading for the Coney Island lab as quickly as he can. He isn’t sure who he is right now. There’s a cold fire burning in his gut and it’s roaring behind his eyes. He doesn’t know who he _wants_ to be, in this moment. 

His scalp itches. His skin itches. He gets out of the suit as soon as he can and takes a shower. It doesn’t help. He turns the little medicine cabinet mirror to the wall. He stares into his make-shift lab wardrobe and doesn’t want to touch any of it: Not the slacks, not the skirts, not crisp button-ups or patterned silk, not jeans or sweatpants or t-shirts. His jaw is too tight. Nausea sticks long fingers down his throat. The shadows in the corners of his mind are blending together and bearing down, dark and suffocating. He’s built two selves and now he’s hanging from the tightrope strung between them, not one thing or the other. He’s a fraud. A pretender. Nothing about him is real anymore. He doesn’t want to live in his own head, doesn’t want to exist inside his skin, doesn’t want to be anything at all.

He sets up a flight to California. He needs to get away. On the plane he catches up on his emails, and on the news. Tony Stark’s been low-profile, but Rescue hasn’t, and she’s been featured in both tabloids and more reputable new outlets. There’s a whole series of articles about Rescue and the Wasp and the Invisible Woman, and the role of women in superhero work. The risks, the fashion trends they influence, the work-life-balance “question” that no one has ever asked Tony Stark, even when he very clearly hadn’t had any balance at all. One particular article frames everything in the context of female superheroes gaining standing from a man’s research and he feels like he’s going to throw up before he’s even halfway through it. 

The tabloid stories are almost all about Rescue’s supposed love life. Cap is pictured more than once. Tony shuts off his laptop and stares out the window for the rest of the flight, calculating multiples of pi out to fifteen digits until he feels the wheels touch down.

He spends two weeks in Berkeley and San Francisco, officially for the opening of SI’s new marine research department. Unofficially, he spends as much time as possible trying to forget he’s Tony Stark or Rescue. He drinks without worrying about his ability to pilot the armor; he won’t be wearing it. He accepts invitations to parties, and then more parties, the types of parties he hasn’t attended in years.

Ty is there, somehow. And old friend in a place where Tony was expecting a void. Ty makes it easy to forget. To pretend like the last seven years of Tony’s life haven’t even happened. He invites Tony back to his beach house, and then to his yacht, and Tony gives in. He doesn’t have to hide from Ty because Ty already knows almost everything. Ty watches him put on a face like it’s a show just for him, and he kisses Tony’s knuckles like a gentleman out of historical romance. He buys Tony lingerie, and flowers, and takes him to more parties, parties where no one cares who’s wearing make-up and lace and who isn’t. He isn’t who Tony wants, but he’s a good stand-in, and he’s willing, and Tony doesn’t want to resist. 

And then one morning he wakes up and Tony Stark is in the news again. There’s a video, and photos, and new rumors and speculation. He is, thankfully, wearing most of a suit in the footage. There’s no evidence of the silk pulled tight against his skin underneath, or the RT. He’s not doing anything too morally questionable, or illegal, he’s just . . . very definitely not straight. His lips are stained pink and glossy, and his eyes are framed in smokey darkness, and he’s kissing a lot of people. He remembers more than kissing, but the video doesn’t last that long. Small mercies.

There are already reporters and photographers at the gate, Ty tells him. Everyone eager for another bite. Tony’s voicemail is full of new messages. From Pepper. From the Board. From SI’s PR department. 

Like the last seven years haven’t happened. At least this time SI isn’t dependent on military contracts. The person Tony is risking the most is himself. 

He stands alone in the master bath of Ty’s intensely modern glass-and-steel beach house and wishes for more familiar surroundings. For warm woods and soft carpet. For doors that only he can unlock. For rooms he’s known since childhood and the comforting knowledge that Jarvis is just down the hall, always willing to help. He shakes the longing away. It was idiotic to think this _wouldn’t_ happen. For a genius, he somehow keeps fucking this up the same way, over and over again. This _always_ happens. He lets himself have something, anything, and the world fights back. There’s always someone ready to make sure he remembers his place.

He stares at Rescue’s Avengers ID card and closes his hand around it until the edges bite deep into his palm. 

He flies back to New York that night. Back to the Mansion. He leaves the armor in the lab and pours himself a brandy in what used to be his father’s study and drinks it too fast. He pours himself another and takes it to the conservatory. He picks at the piano as dawn seeps through the windows, teasing out old melodies until he feels someone watching.

Steve, in workout clothes, apparently just back from a morning jog.

“I didn’t know you played,” he says.

“I don’t.” Tony takes a drink. “Not any more.”

Steve’s eyes drift to the windows, with their view of the grounds, and the outer wall, and the paparazzi trying to hold their cameras up over it. Not that they’ll get anything useful. Tony’d had reflective film installed over all the Mansion windows as soon as he learned it was possible.

“There’s a lot of people out there,” Steve says. “More than the usual Avengers crowd.”

“Yeah, sorry about that.” Tony takes another drink. “This happens to me sometimes.” He doesn’t want to look at Steve right now, he decides. Not with Ty still so close to mind. It’s turning the brandy sour in his gut. He turns back to the piano and tries to remember how to start _Rhapsody in Blue_.

“It’s not right, what they’re saying about you.”

Every muscle in Tony’s back goes rigid. He sits very, very still.

“Most of it is true.” His voice comes out hoarse and he tries to swallow down the tightness in his throat. It doesn’t work.

“It doesn’t matter if it’s true or not,” Steve says, and there’s actual anger in his tone. “It’s not their business. The only people who should be worrying about who you kiss or sleep with is you and your partner. It’s private. It shouldn’t be splashed over newspapers, or TV, or the internet.”

Tony laughs, surprised. If only.

“Thanks, Cap.” He shifts around and manages a smile. “That’s sweet of you to say. A little naive, these days, but sweet.”

“It’s not naive to treat people decently,” Steve insists. He has his arms crossed, stubborn, but his scowl is directed at the windows, not at Tony.

They could probably leave it there. Drop the topic. Move on. But Tony still feels like he’s waiting for a blow to land. 

“Is this going to be a problem?” He grips his tumbler carefully, like an anchor. “The bi thing,” he clarifies, when Steve looks confused. “The fact that I sleep with men. This isn’t how I would’ve wanted you to find out, but it’s still true.”

Steve’s arms drop to his sides. “Oh.” His eyebrows arch in surprise. “I already knew that.”

Tony frowns. He’s quite certain he’s never mentioned it in Steve’s presence before.

“I Googled you,” Steve admits. He looks a bit sheepish. “A while ago. You’re away so much and—I was curious. Sorry.”

Oh, _hell_. Steve, Googling him. Steve, with his tactical brain and his determination to get to the bottom of things, trying to sift through the endless black hole of articles and photos and videos and blog posts and click-bait nonsense that’s been attached to Tony’s name over the years. _Fuck_.

Tony rubs his free hand over his face. “ _I’m_ sorry,” he says. “That is—really not a good way to get information about me.”

“Yeah, I figured that out.” Steve smiles. “But no, to answer your question, that won’t be a problem. And for the record, I think you can probably do better for yourself than anyone who lets a stranger record you.”

Tony shakes his head. “It’s not always that simple. But thanks, I think.”

He could admit it all right now, he realizes. This is a good moment. He could say, _There’s something else I should tell you_ , and then it’d be over. Like ripping off a bandage. No more worrying about juggling Steve’s crush on Rescue and his utter lack of a crush on Tony. No more having to decide between one thing and the other: Tony or Rescue. He could be both, maybe. And he’d _know_ Steve’s reaction, instead of just wondering and hoping and holding on to the knot of fear in his chest.

He waits too long. Steve starts talking again.

“Jarvis is helping me plan a team dinner for Thursday,” he says. “If you want to come? I was planning to invite Rescue too but she’s been pretty scarce. Can you pass the message along? You’re both welcome.”

Tony swallows back his confession. Little steps. He can spend more time with the team as Tony Stark. Let them get to know him this way, too. Maybe then it won’t be so much of a shock, whenever the rest of his secrets do come out. After yesterday, he can’t tell himself they won’t. Everything does.

“Yeah,” he tells Steve. “Yeah, I can do that. Dinner. Sounds great.”

*

Tony is twenty-eight years old and he’s been unmasked. More than that, he’s been peeled out of the armor entirely, the scattered shell of his secret identity lying bent and warped around him like so much shiny wrapping paper. Steve is still holding the faceplate. There are deep fingermarks in the bottom edge. Steve’s fingermarks, from where he had to pull it off by force to stop Tony from suffocating in his own suit.

Tony’s head aches. His back aches. Breathing hurts like a stab wound in his side; he may have broken a rib. The world tilts and spins; he thinks he might throw up. His vision grays. There’s a steadying hand on his shoulder—She-Hulk, or Captain Marvel—and Jan is crouching in front of him, her eyes wide and her mouth moving, but he can’t hear whatever she’s saying. His brain is full of buzzing static. He can hear his own heartbeat, and the spill of air through his throat. His hands feel like they’re far away, like his arms are gone but somehow his hands remain. He can’t feel his tongue but he still thinks he might choke on it, and his heart is beating so fast his chest hurts with it.

Panic attack, Don tells him later. With added complications of concussion and injury: He _did_ crack two ribs. 

Tony never wants to fight Doom again.

Then his teammates show up at his sickbed, with questions and worried expressions, and he reconsiders. Fighting Doom again would be possibly better than this. Better than talking himself hoarse trying to explain that he _is_ Rescue. That there was never anyone else in the suit. There’s a moment there where he could tell a different kind of lie—could omit most of his reasons for choosing Rescue’s form over a more male presentation—but he’s so tired of hiding, and these are his _friends_ , so he keeps talking. Keeps trying to explain that it’s not just a mask, or a misdirection, it’s part of him. It’s who he is. 

It’s difficult. “Genderqueer” might be a word that Tony’s known for years, but that doesn’t make it something they’ve heard before. Thor helps, a little. He doesn’t judge and he talks about “Midgardian shapeshifting,” and he outright asks about pronouns, and it’s nice. Tony’s not entirely certain what he thinks about being compared to Loki, but it’s nice to not have to explain _everything._

The rest of the team takes it . . . differently. Not so much with their in-the-moment reactions—no one argues with Thor—but after. 

Jennifer asks him for reading recommendations. Articles. Books. Magazines. Anything, and he has to tell her that his knowledge is probably significantly out of date. Monica starts calling him Rescue almost exclusively, which he finds somewhat endearing. Jan sits him down for a make-over and tells him that Rescue’s red is not his color, _There are other shades of red in the world, Tony, you can do better._

Steve . . . keeps his distance. Tony tries to hide his disappointment and probably fails horribly. He’d thought they were doing well. Friends. Close friends. He’d made Steve a new uniform. They’d attended fundraisers together and watched movies in the den afterward. Sometimes Tony played piano while Steve painted in the conservatory. Sometimes Steve would sketch in the lab while Tony worked. Once, twice, Tony thought maybe his apparently never-ending crush on Steve wasn’t as unrequited as it seemed. Maybe. It had been _good_ and Tony had gotten so close to picking up one of the old helmets and telling Steve the truth. So, so close. He’d _wanted_ to know how Steve would react to Rescue’s face. 

Now he knows, and it’s awful.

Three days after the mask comes off, Tony finds Steve in the lab with Rescue’s pieces spread out on a workbench in front of him. He looks up when Tony enters, but he doesn’t move.

“Hi,” Tony says, and mentally kicks himself. Dumb. _Dumb_. 

Steve sighs. “Hi, Tony.”

Tony flounders in the ensuing silence, discarding one topic after another as too weird, or too bitter, or too fake. The part of him that doesn’t want to start a fight wars against the conviction that he can’t stand to go back in the closet around Steve, not for anything, not even a little. 

“Something I can help you with?” he asks finally. Neutral. Calm. Open.

Steve stares at the armor.

“I keep missing her,” he says. “But she wasn’t real.”

Neutrality flees Tony’s mind. He is not calm. “She’s real.” It comes out with more bite than he expects. “ _I’m_ real. And I’m right here, Steve. I always have been.”

Steve winces. “I know, I know, I’m sorry.”

 _Are you? Really? Do you really understand?_ Tony swallows back the words and reminds himself: _He doesn’t want to start a fight_. He stomps over to his computer workstation without speaking. He has work to do. He should do it.

When he looks up, later, Steve is gone. 

Tony pours himself a measure of whiskey and gets back to work. 

Despite Steve’s continued silence, there are advantages to being out, at least inside the Mansion’s walls. Tony doesn’t have to hide the RT anymore, and his wardrobe is more flexible. T-shirts are back in, and open collars, and cardigans and jackets that are technically too long for most men’s fashion. He doesn’t have to wear the helmet for post-mission debriefs, and doesn’t have to wear the armor at all for Avengers council meetings. After a few weeks he stops worrying about wearing make-up outside his rooms. 

_That_ catches Steve’s attention, but he doesn’t comment. He just shoots little looks at Tony, during meetings and meals and sometimes even when Tony’s in the armor, entirely covered up.

There are a lot of little looks, Tony realizes. At the RT. At Tony’s face. And then Steve starts seeking him out again. For Rescue things: strategy and training scenarios and battle formations, and for Tony Stark things too: conversations in the lab; art and piano in the conservatory; tech enhancements for the team. He’s friendly, but in a quieter way than before. Like he’s holding something back. 

Something is happening, but Tony’s not sure what it is. 

He wears lipstick and eyeliner to the next Avengers round-table and Steve is distracted enough Jan has to call his name twice to get his attention. After, Steve invites him to spar in the gym, hand-to-hand without the suit, and Tony tells himself he’s imagining the lingering touch on his forearm when Steve gives him a hand up from the mat, and he’s imagining the gaze on his back as he strips off his shirt for a shower. But Steve keeps looking, and he keeps touching, too. Little things that hover right on the edge of platonic. His palm cupped around Tony’s elbow at a fundraiser, steering him away from a drunk weapons dealer who wants to talk about the old days. A touch to the back of his hand, as Steve passes over a screwdriver in the lab. A brush of legs and arms, on the couch during team movie night. A shoulder squeeze, when Jan insists that _yes_ Rescue is still benched, no matter what, until Tony’s ribs heal. 

Sometimes Steve smiles when they’re talking, or stands a little closer than usual, and Tony’s almost certain he’s being flirted with. 

Almost.

Almost isn’t good enough. He won’t risk their fragile friendship now. He promises himself: If this happens, Steve makes the first move. He can be patient. He can wait. And if nothing happens—that can be okay too.

It can.

He waits. He scraps the in-progress suit and starts another, for the distraction. Something that will be hopefully much less susceptible to magic. He spends more and more time in his lab, trying to streamline the HUD programs and improve the armor’s reaction times. He’s deep in an incredibly annoying string of code one day when Steve’ s ID chimes at the lab door and Tony buzzes him in. Steve’s been pretty good, lately, about just settling somewhere nearby until Tony’s ready to come up for air.

“Hey, Tony,” he says. “I thought—you’re wearing a skirt.”

“Yeah,” Tony replies absently. “Today is a no-pants kind of day.” Then he registers: This isn’t Pepper, or Jarvis or even Jan. This is Steve.

Steve, who’s staring like he’s never seen Tony before this moment. Or like he’s never seen Tony’s legs, maybe, which is fair enough. Tony’s pretty sure Steve’s never seen them shaved. He feels, abruptly, like he’s been shifted in time a few decades. Bare knees, how scandalous. And ankles.

He puts down the laptop and gives Steve his full attention.

“Is this a problem?” 

Steve’s head jerks up.

“No,” he says, and Tony’s pretty sure that’s a flush in his cheeks. “No,” Steve repeats, his expression turning suspiciously neutral. “I was just—you missed dinner, so I thought I’d bring you something. If you wanted it. Um.”

There’s a covered plate in his hands. He’s still staring. His eyes flicker, up and down, Face to knees. Tony wonders what he’s seeing. The eyeliner? The lip balm? He’d gone for more subtle touches today than Rescue’s usual flair. He watches Steve’s face as he approaches the door, but Steve doesn’t meet his gaze. His eyes follow Tony’s movements, trained somewhat lower than normal. Definitely the skirt. 

“Maybe I should rephrase the question,” Tony says as he gets close. Steve does look up again then. His eyes catch a moment somewhere between the skirt’s hemline and Tony’s eyes and Tony wonders what it was. The RT glowing under his shirt? His lips?

“It’s—” Steve coughs and clears his throat. “Fine. You look fine.” He’s blushing again, looking at some spot past Tony’s left ear.

Tony’s scalp tickles. Anticipation curls in his chest. He takes the plate and sets it aside, and then he takes another step closer to Steve, holding his breath. Steve doesn’t back away. Another step, and there’s only a few inches left between them. Steve’s gaze shifts down again. Tony is almost certain. He licks his lips. Steve mirrors it. 

He never has been good at being patient. 

“You could stay,” he offers. He shifts his weight, lets his shoulders drop and lifts his chin. “If you want?” He watches Steve’s mouth.

Steve touches light hands to his jaw and hip, and kisses him. Soft lips. Gentle pressure. Tony opens his mouth and invites something deeper—he hasn’t spent three years thinking about this to be chaste now—and Steve is _there_ , gripping his jaw tighter and pulling their hips closer and kissing fierce and hard, and Tony holds on and kisses back, throwing artistry aside for enthusiasm.

Steve’s hands move, the one stroking through Tony’s goatee and the other shifting down, and then he breaks the kiss.

“Can we—”

“Whatever you want,” Tony promises. He touches Steve’s face, and then his collar, his chest. “Anything, Steve, just say the word.”

They end up pressed against the wall, touching from hips to chest. Steve’s hands slide up under Tony’s skirt and Tony grips white-knuckled at Steve’s T-shirt, trying to convey through kisses and breathless murmurs how very much he means that _anything_. Steve reaches his underwear—silk and lace panties because why not—and makes a pleased sound deep in his throat, kissing harder as he draws his thumb along the line of Tony’s cock with just enough pressure to make Tony squirm and gasp. 

“Steve,” he breathes, “Steve I—”

“Tell me you want this,” Steve says, breathless and only half-voiced but with real concern in his eyes, and Tony says _yes, yes, god yes, please._

“Good.” Steve leans in and bites lightly at his neck, under his jaw. He slips his hand under the silk fabric, pressing the rough, warm heel of his palm to the base of Tony’s cock. “The make-up drives me crazy, did you know that?” he says, hot breath on Tony’s ear. “I used to spend hours thinking about Rescue’s lips, and now you’re _right there_ wearing lipstick all the time. And your eyes, _fuck_ , do you know what eyeliner does to your eyes?” 

Tony grinds against Steve’s hand and tries not to whimper. Steve draws back from his neck and his eyes are blue, blue, blue and he’s not looking away now. 

“I want to know what you look like on your knees, and in my bed,” he says, soft as whisper. “I want to kiss you in the armor and mess up those black suits you wear to the office. I want start a movie and not watch any of it because we’re too wrapped up in _this_. I want to see you in one of those little sleeveless cocktail dresses and nothing else.” 

Tony laughs; there’s a hysterical edge to it. He can hardly think through the building pleasure in his center.

“I take it you like the skirt then,” he manages.

“It’s currently tied with the armor for favorite things I’ve seen you wear,” Steve agrees, and then they’re kissing again, long and deep and frantic. Tony reaches for Steve’s zipper and draws out his cock, and then Steve moves again, pressing their cocks together skin-to-skin and jerking them both off until Tony comes with a shuddering sigh. Steve comes just a few strokes after, leaning into him and pressing more kisses to his lips, and his jaw, and his cheek. Tony wraps his arms around Steve’s neck and kisses back. Kisses his nose and his forehead and his lips and his chin.

“I’m thinking I should wear skirts more often,” he says, and he can’t stop smiling as Steve laughs into his shoulder and pulls him into something more like a hug.

They clean up in the lab’s single-stall shower and share Tony’s cold dinner and talk, and it’s almost exactly the same as it was before, except now Tony can steal kisses between sentences and Steve looks at him like he can’t quite believe he’s real.

It’s better. It really, actually is.

*

Tony is thirty years old and he stands in the shadowed doorway of a well-lit balcony, Rescue’s helmet held between his hands. He stares down at the silver faceplate and takes deep, slow breaths. He can hear the shift and murmur of the crowd outside, can hear questions shouted at the rest of the team, already waiting.

Steve hangs at his shoulder, Captain America in full uniform, blocking the line of sight of any particularly ambitious reporters. 

“You don’t have to do this,” he says.

Tony closes his eyes tight and tells himself it’s true. He could still back out. There are enough other announcements to make today; his secret identity could fall to the side and no one would notice. None of his teammates would fault him.

He sighs.

“I want to.” He meets Steve’s eyes with a rueful smile. “It’s time, I think. Better than another unmasking fiasco. And who knows, maybe it’ll do some good.”

The world is changing; he can see it in his mind’s eye. If he acts now he can be part of it. Be an example. A public figure, unapologetically queer.

“Are sure _you’re_ okay with it?” he asks Steve, again. After all, if their relationship comes out after this it’ll be Steve's reputation on the line too.

“Of course.” Steve puts a hand to Tony’s shoulder. He can’t feel much of it through the armor, but the weight is reassuring. “Whatever happens,” Steve promises, “I’ll be here.”

“Okay.” Tony nods, mostly to himself. “Okay.”

He takes one more deep breath and puts on the helmet. Just for a few minutes. A press conference can be a tricky thing; he’ll need surprise _and_ good rhetoric to get this right. Good soundbites, photo-worthy moments, no distractions. He has a script and he’s sticking to it. 

“Ready?” Steve asks.

“Ready,” Tony nods.

Together, they step into the sun.


End file.
